Agricultural Incentives Program


Sand County Foundation is committed to Aldo Leopold’s land ethic.  Integral to the land ethic is the idea of land and water as inseparable elements of one biotic community.  The substantial impact of production agriculture on water quality throughout the Midwest, therefore, is naturally a major focus of Sand County Foundation’s project work.

The Agricultural Incentives Program was established in 2003 to find creative ways to address the degradation of surface waters by nutrients running off agricultural land.  The Program emphasizes nitrogen and phosphorus runoff reduction at the watershed scale — through projects Sand County Foundation operates or supports directly, and also through efforts to bring together directors and key stakeholders of projects operated by other groups throughout the Upper Midwest.  We also continue efforts to evaluate individual nitrogen runoff reduction practices, working with local and regional partners.

Ag Incentives operates in Wisconsin and other states in the Midwest, the nation’s agricultural heartland and home of the two largest watersheds, most populous watersheds in North America:  the Mississippi River and Great Lakes Basins.  Its projects seek creative ways to keep nitrogen and phosphorus on the land where they can help grow corn, soybeans, and alfalfa, and out of the water where they only help grow algae.

Good science.  Incentives targeted to practices and projects intended to have a positive impact on water quality.  Experimenting with markets that could reduce the cost of clean water for everyone by paying farmers for preventing pollution. Demonstrating and developing new or underused practices that can keep nutrient out of surface water without taking land out of production.  These are the tools Ag Incentives uses to help a small organization make a big difference.

 

Strategic Approach

Sand County Foundation has established a consortium of stakeholders and scientific experts to operate a pilot program to demonstrate the use of incentives to reduce nitrogen discharge from agricultural lands into the Upper Mississippi River and elsewhere.

Plan for Action

This program will demonstrate, test and evaluate a variety of techniques for nitrogen reduction.

Creating Increased Economic Opportunity

Establishing a new market mechanism to provide ecological services like clean water (in this case reduced nitrogen contamination of water) has the dual benefits of creating economic opportunities to farmers and farm communities while improving environmental management.

North Central Leadership Summit on Nutrient Management & Water Quality

Farm leaders, conservationists, researchers and representatives of agribusiness, municipalities and agencies from around the Midwest gathered in Des Moines, IA in late August 2006 for the North Central Leadership Summit on Nutrient Management and Water Quality.

Implications for Public Health

Both municipal and private drinking water supplies are threatened by high levels of nitrogen. Strategies to reduce agricultural discharge of nitrogen may be one of the most cost effective techniques to provide clean drinking water.

North South Mississippi Basin Summit II - 2006

Market-Based Incentives to Improve Conservation Delivery: Reducing Nutrient Discharge from Agriculture in the Mississippi Basin.

North South Summit - 2004

This meeting focused on management options that are cost effective and within the reach and experience of farmers.  Special attention was paid to farmer friendly, market based incentives to assist in targeting priority actions


Sand County Foundation, the University of Wisconsin Discovery Farms, and Dane County, Wisconsin farmer, John Waddell, discuss the value of cover crops as part of the Foundation's Agricultureal Incentives Program. Watch the video.